Pilati’s New Chapter

"Lots and lots of vacation," he joked. "I find myself with this amazing experience. I want to use it for something that makes me feel that I am part of this moment and that helps me to continue. Unless I decide to stay on vacation for the rest of my life, I am pretty sure I have the energy and the knowledge at least to try to do something relevant, something that is part of what people need."

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The designer - who was succeeded at YSL by Hedi Slimane earlier this month - says that despite recent changes, he is quite content.

"I am really good," Pilati said in a public talk with chief curator of Paris' Musée de la Mode et du Textile Pamela Colbin on Tuesday night. "I am really happy, which is something that's very unusual for me in the sense that I never believed that it could be possible to feel happy - at least under these kinds of circumstances." "It's pretty beautiful what happened to me," he added. "I found myself working and being supported and encouraged by amazing people, who I always admired and still admire. I found myself at the end of this chapter and don't regret one minute."

Pilati, who described himself as "passionate and complicated", worked under then-YSL helmer Tom Ford until 2004 - when Ford left and he was made the label's new creative director. "Let's not go there," he said. "I don't think 'challenging' is the right word. It was dramatic, it was tragic. No, it was great. Tom has such self-confidence that you can really absorb it, and he has enough for everybody around him. And I definitely got it. I said: 'give it to me.' I had questioned every single moment of my life, so imagine he brings me there and gives me a lot of responsibility with an amazing relationship."